


just a dream

by BriaMaria



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Battle, Fantasy, Kingdoms, M/M, a little blood, fluff I think?, harry is a nymph, just a brief mention though, louis has antlers, there are lots of butterflies, there's smut but it's gauzy, these tags are a mess sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 07:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriaMaria/pseuds/BriaMaria
Summary: “Won’t you join me?” The voice was soft, more melody than anything else. It wrapped around Louis, silken bands that tugged at his arms, at his chest.He didn’t step out of the shadows. “No.”The man in the pond smiled, sad and sweet and knowing, and then sunk beneath the water in the next heartbeat. The butterflies that had adorned his chest like jewelry, that had tangled in his dark curls, fluttered away.--Or the one where Louis is the king of the forest, Harry is friends with butterflies and a war is brewing on the horizon.





	just a dream

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! My fingers slipped and I wrote a fic for the solstice! I hope you find a light in the winter darkness, even if it's just a 5K fic about a Louis that has antlers and a Harry that speaks to butterflies. 
> 
> Also this is entire thing is based on [this drawing ](http://briannamarguerite.tumblr.com/tagged/prompt) which I could not stop thinking about. It makes a lot more sense if you look at it first :)))))

“Won’t you join me?” The voice was soft, more melody than anything else. It wrapped around Louis, silken bands that tugged at his arms, at his chest.

He didn’t step out of the shadows. “No.”

The man in the pond smiled, sad and sweet and knowing, and then sunk beneath the water in the next heartbeat. The butterflies that had adorned his chest like jewelry, that had tangled in his dark curls, fluttered away.

“He’ll be back,” Louis promised the creatures, where they hovered, distressed, their purple and blue wings beating an angry staccato against the air.

The water was clear as the finest glass, but it distorted the sunlight that trickled in. The rays became blurred chains coiling around Harry’s wrists, thighs, ankles. They dipped into the man’s hair threading it with gold.

Everything was still, as if the world was holding its breath, just waiting for Harry to rejoin them all.

It shouldn’t have been this quiet. Louis was at the very edge of the trees, propped against the trunk of an ancient willow whose knots pressed against his shoulder. There should be bird song, the chatter of squirrels, the crackle of wind through dead leaves. Silence reigned instead.

And then Harry broke through the surface, damp and gasping for air, his hair slicked back. The water ran in rivulets along his shoulders down his chest over pink, puffy nipples hard from the cold sensation.

“You never join me,” Harry said as if there had been no interruption. He didn’t look at Louis, but was smiling at the happy butterflies as they cooed and chipered around his head. “Hello, babies, I wasn’t gone long was I?”

A minute, a day, a year, a century. It didn’t matter. Time was irrelevant to the creatures of this forest.

“You know I can’t.” Louis said, and it was more than he usually gave. He ran a shaking hand down the front of his suit. It was deep, blue velour and Liam told him it brought out the color of his eyes. His lieutenant was the only person allowed to speak to Louis about such matters.

“The King can not disrobe and bathe with peasants,” Harry singsonged, holding a finger out for one of his winged friends. The butterfly landed, took off, landed, like it was teasing. A baby at the cusp of spring.

Louis scoffed and the trees, nervous and on edge with him near, rustled at the noise. “As if you were a peasant.”

That sad and sweet smile again. “You came for a reason.”

Of course Harry knew. “I am to be wed.”

The butterflies took flight, but just for a moment before they landed again.

“I know,” Harry said softly and the winged creatures melted against him, offering their comfort.

The willow’s branches swayed and the trunk shuddered beneath his weight. It wanted him gone from this place, this sanctuary. Away from Harry. He stepped back, respectful as he was willing to be.

“It must be done.” Louis said, his hands deep in the pockets of his pristine suit.

It was then Harry, still waist-deep in the pond that hid no secrets, turned to face where he knew Louis stood in the darkness. Harry would be able to see the outline of him, the sharp, slim antlers, the narrow shoulders, the flared hips, the powerful thighs. He would be a silhouette but he knew he was one Harry would always recognize. Just as Louis would always recognize Harry in whatever form he took.

Their gazes touched across the distance, held, for a minute, a day, a year, a century.

“You speak so many empty words,” Harry finally said. Louis blinked, the accusation a poisoned arrow shot with accuracy. “You speak like I am not your fate.”

The roses on the far bank furled, tucking their lush petals behind a smooth facade, and Louis tossed his antlers, annoyance cloaking the fear that slicked the back of his throat.

“You speak like we are not impossible.” Louis countered and the shadows shrank back from him. The forest did not like he and Harry fighting. It trembled with their tension. “My words are anything but empty.”

“I am not the one who hides beyond the sunlight,” Harry said, tipping his head toward where Louis stood out of sight. Harry's hair was drying, back to the color of damp earth after a rainstorm. A curl brushed against his cheek, and Louis’ fingertips ached to push it back, to touch, to linger, to play in those strands.

“You are…” Louis stopped, dipped his antlers, so that by chance if Harry could see his face he now wouldn’t be able to see his eyes. To read his soul there. “You are too important to me. To risk.”

The world was still again, like when Harry was submerged beneath the water. Only this time they were both pulled under.

“I would rather live without you, and know you are safe, than have anything happen to you because of me,” Louis admitted. Because Harry knew the truth anyway. It was an old argument, one they’d had many times.

_“You’re scared.”_

_“Of course. They will use you against me.”_

Harry trailed a finger through the water near his hip. It rippled out, the waves gentle and rolling along the surface. “Will you come back?”

He asked the question as if he already knew the answer.

“No.”

The butterflies’ wings were a flurry of colors as they took flight once more. This time they fluttered off into the forest, leaving Louis and Harry alone.

“Will you kiss me once more then? To say goodbye?” Harry was already walking toward him.

_You speak like I am not your fate._

Louis could resist the request as much as he could resist breathing, resist the seasons, resist the inevitability of his responsibilities.

Harry emerged from the water, his body as naked as his soul in that moment.

The sun loved him so. It touched Harry like Louis wanted to--caressed long supple thighs, danced along soft hips, dipped into the valley created by his sharp clavicle, turned his eyes as pure green as the water that still clung to him. Nothing ever wanted to let Harry go.

The strings that held Louis' heart together were tangled and pulling in different directions. But for the next moment Louis wouldn’t think about them. It was a luxury he rarely gave himself. If this was to be their goodbye, he wanted it to be pure.

Louis stepped into the light.

***

“My lord.” There was impatience in Liam’s voice that bespoke of more than one attempt to gain Louis’ attention.

“Payne,” Louis finally acknowledged his lieutenant, but he didn’t move away from the window. Moonlight blanketed Louis’ land, a silver swath that banished darkness from its natural habitat.

“The scouts, they’ve reported movement along the border,” Payne reported.

“Attacks?” Louis asked, his eyes still on the kingdom spread out beneath his cliffs. The castle, built high on the peak, let him see everything that was cradled by the mountains on the far side of his land.

“On the village along the Western stream,” Payne said. News of the engagement was making the Highlanders restless. As it should.

“Fatalities?”

“None,” Payne shifted behind him. “They took sheep. Burned the storage barn. Bambry Johnson was cut along his arm, but it was mended quickly.”

The winding tightness in Louis’ chest relaxed. “Send them reinforcements. Soldiers, food.”

“Already done.”

“Leave me then,” Louis said. His mind already returning to the pond. To the plush give of Harry’s lips.

Payne’s boots scuffed against stone. There was a hesitation just before he got to the door. “How did...I mean...Did you see…”

Louis whirled, tossing his antlers. “You know not to speak of that.”

Regret laced through the man’s dark eyes, his ears trembling beneath Louis’ frigid gaze. There was a backbone there, though, the one that secured him the rank of right-hand man to the King. He didn’t bow beneath pressure.

“You know, you can talk to me if you need to,” Payne said, only a slight wobble to the offer. “I know you think you have to go through with this but there’s always other ways.”

The anger seeped from his tired body. “The are no other ways. Without the engagement the Middlelands will fall to the Highlanders. We need the Coastal Kingdom to help us control the onslaught.”

“There has to be another way,” Payne said, stubborn.

Louis turned back to the window. “Do you think I haven’t thought of every possibility? Even if we brave it alone, if we lose the Middlelands, if we end up bleeding resources and men toward protecting our borders until we have nothing left and they take us too? Even if I could live to let that happen? Do you know what they would do first?”

The silence behind him throbbed because Payne knew the truth.

“They would take him,” Louis said, soft so that it might have disappeared into the night. “They would stop at nothing because they know it would hurt me more than anything. Kings aren’t allowed to have weaknesses, Payne.”

“But they could do that now, anyway,” Payne argued and Louis dipped his antlers, a warning. This conversation would be over soon.

“No one knows,” Louis said. “The butterflies know. But they are his friends, and will keep our secret. You know. But I trust you with his life, which is worth more to me than my own.”

“I would die first,” Payne assured him. Louis nodded, because it was the correct answer.

“My magic protects him and his as long as he stays near the pond,” Louis said.

Payne said nothing, but Louis heard him shift toward the door. Just as it was about to close, Louis heard him whisper, “Yes, but what kind of life is that?”

***

The truce wasn’t measured in years, but in times that it had almost been broken. Long ago, the Known Lands of the world had been divided into four realms. The Highlands, The Forest, The Middlelands and The Coast.

They’d lived in peace for milenia, traded between borders, shared knowledge and magic, held festivals to celebrate the seasons, and grieved together over tragedies.

But then there had been a coup in the Highlands. Power shifted to a man who didn’t deserve it, who didn’t understand it, who craved it too much and respected it too little. Resentment was a dark and angry beast that lived in the man’s chest. It howled and snapped and demanded blood. It demanded its fair share, ignoring the fact that it already had a fair share.

The attacks when they’d come had been small at first. Along the borders. The kings of the Known Lands had thought war an impossibility. Until it became life.

By the time Louis’ father was Forest King, a generation had passed that had known nothing but fighting and bloodshed and fear. The three southern realms had launched an assault on the Highlands, catching the kingdom that had always been on the offense by surprise. The warriors had captured the castle, but all sides had suffered untold casualties.

The truce was signed then. The small, bitter man still reigned, but he was held in check. In exchange for a return to peace, he would be given the mountain range. But if he tried to start war again, the southern realms would know no such thing as mercy.

The peace wasn’t the same as it had been before. It was tenuous, perched on a precarious edge. But death was no longer a way of life. And children were born who didn’t know the monsters that struck at night under the cover of darkness.

Louis would do anything, anything, to maintain the balance.

His engagement to the Coastal Queen would only solidify the strength of the southern realm.

And Harry would be safe. In his pond, with his butterflies. Maybe it wasn’t the perfect life, but at least he would be alive.

***

The shadows tugged at Louis, clung to him, even as he stepped into the light.

Harry smiled at him, naked and damp from the pond, his pink-tinted porcelain skin begging to be touched.

“You said you wouldn’t come back.”

“This is a dream,” Louis murmured, and Harry’s smile deepened. They both knew it was more than that, knew magic made this as real as anything.

“Will you join me this time?” Harry held out his hand, a temptrous down to his fingertips. Louis missed the teasing, flirting side of him sometimes.

This was a dream. He didn’t speak it aloud again, knew Harry wouldn’t refute it but also wouldn’t believe it. It helped to think it though. If this was a dream, the consequences weren’t real either.

He was back in his dark blue velour suit, the one he paired with a ruffled shirt done up to his neck. It was a stark contrast to Harry’s nudity. He lifted a hand to the first button, and triumph settled into the corners of Harry’s lips, into his eyes. Dark lashes fluttered against pale cheeks to try to hide it, but Louis read him so easily.

This was a dream.

Harry didn’t move as Louis slipped out of his jacket, out out of his shirt. His trousers pooled on the dry earth beneath his now-bare feet and he stepped away from the bundle of discarded clothing. Naked. Hard.

They didn’t crash into each other, despite the desire thrumming in the air between them. The roses were out, unfurled and plush like the best of sex and love in flower form. Willow branches rustled, but not in trepidation this time. The music of them filled the otherwise quiet clearing.

Harry held out his hand, his eyes on Louis’ face. Louis took it.

Power flowed between their palms. Harry was magic in human form; Louis was strength. The forest swayed toward them, hungry and eager for the energy that radiated like waves from their connection. Flowers bloomed along the edge of the pond, not just roses, but daisies and tulips and orchids.

The water was cool against Louis' overheated skin. It welcomed him, embraced him, as he followed Harry beyond the shallow banks. When they were waist deep Harry stopped, turning toward Louis.

The current that shouldn't be there nudged them together, until their bodies were flush, aching hardness against aching hardness. Except. Harry was soft. So soft. His eyes, his hair, his skin, his hips.

Louis slid his thigh between Harry’s lithe, gorgeous legs, and pressed up. Harry’s lashes swept closed in pleasure and Louis used the moment to pull him closer.

“This is a dream,” he whispered against Harry’s sweet lips.

“Then let me sleep forever and a day,” Harry said. “For if this is a dream, I never want to wake.”

There was only so much Louis could take. He groaned and dug his fingers into Harry’s curls. Their mouths met in a dance that was so familiar it hurt. Louis pushed inside, his tongue sweeping over Harry’s. He tasted of raspberries.

Louis' hand anchored Harry at the waist as the stumbled deeper into the water together. The pond cradled them as they kissed lazy and deep, then fast and urgent. Harry’s back pressed up against a fallen log, and Louis used the leverage to hoist the boy’s legs so that they wrapped around Louis’ hips.

“My love, my everything,” Louis murmured as his mouth trailed down along the long expanse of Harry’s throat. He found the pulse that beat wild and free beneath delicate skin and sucked until he knew there would be a mark. His mark.

“My heart, my life,” Harry whimpered back. These were vows they’d already made to each other, but everytime they said them, the promise deepened.

Soon Louis was sinking into Harry’s soft, hot body. Home. He had never let himself have such fanciful thoughts. The castle was the seat of his power. His kingdom was his strength. The forest was his love.

But Harry was his home.

“I love you, I love you,” Louis said in every language he knew. Tears ran down Harry’s pale cheeks but he didn’t say the words back. The strings that pulled at Louis' heart tightened until it ripped apart, a jagged line down the center. Still Louis said it. “I love you. I love you.”

He wrapped a shaking palm around Harry’s hardness, and it was only a few breaths later that Harry came, pleasure drawing him taut in Louis’ arms. The way his face broke with it, with the ecstacy that was rolling through his body, sent Louis over his own edge.

They held each other then, panting and shivering, the emotion too much for their fragile psyches.

This is just a dream. Louis didn’t realize he said it aloud until Harry’s tears fell against his shoulders.

***

When Louis awoke he could still smell Harry on his skin, still taste the salt of Harry’s tears against his lips.

There was a knock on his bedroom door. “My lord.”

It was his wedding day.

“Enter.”

Payne strode into the room, and Louis pushed himself up so that he was seated on the edge of his bed and not lying in it.

“My lord, your queen has arrived.”

“Not quite my queen yet, is she?” Louis muttered. The unusual casualness of the answer startled Payne and he shifted back.

“Erm…”

“Ignore me, please,” Louis pushed off the mattress and stretched, unabashed in his nudity. He rolled his neck and dipped his antlers. “She has been taken to her rooms?”

“Well…”

Louis froze at the tone, his head still tilted to one side. “Well, what?”

“Um. She’s demanding an audience with you,” Payne clutched his hands together. “She doesn’t seem… happy to be here, my lord.”

Something flashed in Louis’ chest, an emotion that was too complex to name. “She is backing out of the arrangement?”

“That is beyond what I feel comfortable speculating,” Payne said, but there was a yes lingering in the soft spaces of his mouth.

Louis dressed in one of his best suits, one that emphasized the cut of his waist, and the flare of his hips.

When he strode into his great hall, he knew he looked like power and strength despite his compact frame.

There was a woman standing by his throne, her hands on her hips, her back to him. Her long blonde hair was threaded with braids and seaweed; it cascaded over her shoulder, down her back. She was dressed in traditional Coastal garb: gauzy foam green fabric that crossed over her breasts and again over her stomach to wrap around her hips and fall into a skirt along the tops of her thighs. Her skin was a deep, burnt honey and she smelled of the sea.

She turned when she heard him and he locked eyes with his betrothed across the empty room. Payne must have emptied the hall of spectators, for which Louis was grateful.

“Forest King,” the queen said and although there was respect in her tone, her eyes challenged him.

He bowed his head, keeping the tips of his antlers tilted slightly away from her in a show of respect. “Queen Perrie of the Coast. Welcome.”

The curt nod that followed would be the only concession she would grant to custom, Louis realized. It dictated that she at least hint at a curtsey. He did not find offense, though. Instead he was intrigued by her spirit.

“I do not wish to cause war,” Perrie said, but her stance was pure conflict. Her shoulders were pulled back, her feet planted far apart.

“But…”

“I cannot marry you,” she said.

Relief, pure and heady, poured through his veins as the muscles he had not realized were tense relaxed. “You will not start a war.”

She blinked, thick, heavy lashes attempting to hide confusion in still-defiant eyes. “I will not start a war because you will not hold me to the agreement, or I will not start a war because you will force me to marry you anyway.”

Louis smiled, the lessons of Kinghood too ingrained in him to not seize the upper hand, at least for a moment. “Why do you not wish to marry?”

“I want to rule,” Perrie said, her voice cautious. “I don’t wish to be a wife.”

Her hand was resting on the sword that was snug in a sheath looped around her waist. As if she were going to have to battle him for her freedom. She didn’t realize the gift she was bestowing on him.

“Then you will not be a wife,” Louis said.

Shock etched itself on her features, before her face went blank. Kinghood had been ingrained in her as well. “With no punishment? You seek no compensation for your loss?”

“I want peace,” Louis said. The simplicity of it, the naivete, made him seem weak, he was sure. But it was the truth. “If you can guarantee that you will strive for that, I want nothing else from you.”

She licked her lips. “Is it possible for us to be true allies then?”

For children who had grown up in war, the idea seemed unimaginable. For rulers who were tired of death, though, it came like a reprieve.

He had just stepped closer to shake on the deal, when the large doors of the hall slammed open.

Payne stumbled inside. “My lord.”

Louis was on him in an instant. There had been panic in his voice, where normally there was nothing but calm.

“Tell me,” Louis demanded.

“They have him,” Payne gasped out. The world went dark for the span of a breath, went silent, went empty. And then everything flooded back in.

“That’s not possible.”

Payne’s eyes were wide, darting over Louis’ face. “He left the pond.”

“No.”

He wouldn’t do that. Harry knew that pond was where he was safe. He wouldn’t do that. Not to Louis.

“Your wedding day…” Is all Payne said.

_This is a dream._

Would Harry have left to stop Louis? Would he have been that foolish?

_You speak as if I am not your fate._

The jagged halves of his heart, still torn in two, turned to ice and then shattered, the shards slipping into his bloodstream. His body was cold, so cold, and it hurt. But he couldn’t think about that now.

Perrie was next to him in an instant. “What happened?”

“Our scouts saw Highlanders on our land, so they followed them,” Payne was still watching Louis’ face even as he answered Perrie. “They trailed the group until they surrounded Harry. Erm. The King’s … the King’s…”

Perrie waved a hand. She understood.

“It happened too fast for the scouts to do anything and they were outnumbered,” Payne said, as if Louis didn’t know that.

“How did they know about him?” Louis asked. His voice was deadly quiet in the empty hall.

Payne sucked in air. “A boy in the stables saw you one time. Followed you. He has family in the Highlands.”

His jaw locked, his fists clenched. Rage melted the shards of ice in his blood. “Kill him.”

All three of them stilled at the order, the words leaving a sour taste against Louis’ tongue.

Payne blinked, eyes wide, but didn’t try to sway him.

Louis dipped his antlers, shuddering as he tried to control himself. “Don’t. Banish him. If I see him on my land again he will be killed.”

Some of the disappointment faded from his lieutenant’s face. “What now?”

His mind was useless, his thoughts slow, sluggish. He looked at his hands that were shaking and red where they had curled in on themselves. If he could rip the tapestries from their hangings, if he could shatter all the plates on the table, if he could tear apart the very walls of the castle, he would. But he needed to get to Harry.

He turned toward Perrie. “You do not want war?”

“I do not want war with the Forest,” Perrie corrected. “The Highlands have gone too far. They’ve broken the truce. And we have promised long ago that if they did, there would be no mercy.”

Louis nodded, and held out his hand. She took it.

“No mercy.”

***

They rode at nightfall, the cover of darkness familiar and welcome to Louis.

Louis hadn’t wanted to wait, but they'd needed to collect their armies. They had sent an envoy to the Middlelands Court to request extra force, but Louis would not be delayed any longer.

He dressed in soft breeches, sturdy boots and a thick coat that would protect him from the howling winds of the Highlands.

Perrie shrugged off an offer for one of her own. Her lieutenants, all women, flanked her sides as they left the protective walls of the castles.

It took them three long, hard days of riding to get to the Highlands’ fortress. It took them another two to capture it.

Blood ran thick along the ice-encrusted dirt; bodies crumpled beneath broadswords; men cried but were still shown no mercy.

It was Perrie whose sword tip dug into the bitter man’s throat. When it did, everything stopped, everyone stilled. In battle, thoughts were an enemy, a distraction. But they tumbled back in as the bitter man fell to his knees and begged for his life. Not the life of his men. Just his own.

Perrie didn’t say anything, just waited until Louis joined her side. They stood together above the weeping man whose dark soul was now cowering, begging for leniency he himself would never have shown.

“You knew the terms,” Louis said. It was a death sentence. Perrie carried it out swiftly.

Louis didn’t wait, didn’t listen to the strangled cry that was cut off mid-wail, didn’t celebrate with his men, or mourn the end to an evil creature.

Now that the emptiness of battle was over, Harry flooded in. Louis could feel him, the energy of him was like a soft golden light calling out to Louis. He was here. He was alive.

It was time to bring him home.

***

“Will you join me?” The voice was soft, teasing.

“No.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder, a nymph in spring, his lashes fluttering as he bit his lip. “A King cannot disrobe and bathe with peasants, then?”

“Minx,” Louis growled, dipping his antlers as Harry shrugged out of the fine, lawn shirt. Louis was not accustomed to seeing Harry clothed, but nudity was not the norm in the Forest’s Court.

They were safe, though, at their pond, their magic a soft, protective wall shielding them from curious eyes.

Butterflies swarmed Harry, their wings tangling in his curls, and he giggled and cooed a greeting. “Hello, babies. I miss you.”

They came some time to the castle, the butterflies. They were jewels among the shadows, but they never stayed long. Their home was Harry, but their home was also the pond and the forest and they were not built to be inside.

Harry was not either. Louis brought him here, though, when he could. They also frequently visited the villages by the Western stream, and the ones in the caves on the mountains, and the ones along the borderlands in the south. They were never inside for very long.

“I think you’ve forgotten you are a king now too, my love,” Louis murmured as Harry thumbed his trousers down over his hips. The gentle swell of his ass was revealed to Louis’ hungry gaze slowly.

“That means you have to follow my commands, right?” Harry asked, his chin still on his shoulder as he watched Louis beneath hooded lids. His curls tumbled down his back, framed his flushed, happy face. The strong lines of his body begged for Louis’ touch.

Resistance was impossible.

_You speak as if I am not your fate._

“Then you must join me,” Harry said now, grinning in mischief at his own imperious tone before he stepped into the cool water.

Louis laughed, his hand already going to the buttons of his shirt.

The forest pulsed with their joy, celebrating that its kings were happy.  

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for indulging my love of that drawing and reading this! if you'd like you can find the [ fic post here ](http://briannamarguerite.tumblr.com/post/168805526437/just-a-dream-5k-by-briamaria-harry-held-out-his)
> 
> xo


End file.
